Entrepreneurial food ecosystem: Strategic driver to boost resilience and sustainability

Abstract

Food is connected to a variety of fields such as agriculture, environment, energy, health, education, infrastructure, and urban planning to name a few. Given the threats of population growth, climate change, and the waning health of our natural resource base, broadening our R&I methods to be more systems-based, and building public-private partnerships around shared interests and objectives are two key approaches that can be employed to address challenges to food ecosystem resiliency and sustainability. A better understanding of the linkages between food ecosystem sustainability (and consequently food ecosystem sustainability transitions) and food security is necessary to achieve ‘future proof’ food ecosystems. However, R&I efforts have failed to adequately respond to the urgent and system wide challenges that threaten food sustainability. A reason for this includes the fact that much like linear ideas of food systems, R&I streams too suffer from compartmentalization. Furthermore, the engagement of all stakeholders, shifting mindsets and approaches from mainstream linear models toward holistic approaches, and involving public and independent R&I could be an appropriate response to challenges regarding food ecosystems’ complexity, and address the dominant and established pathways that are difficult to transform. In this chapter we introduce the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as the adequate vehicle for holistically assessing food ecosystems and innovations toward sustainability while truly considering potential trade-offs from proposed innovations.